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Check the map.

Yellow: Gage Towers, including two new ones.
Green: Low-rise student housing, including Gage Apts.
Aqua: Field and pool.
Pink-White: Roads.

This is what needs to happen. A 2nd-3rd year student housing hub, located close to the heart of campus, but far enough away that it wont disrupt flow, only add to it. Student Union Boulevard should be done away with. There’s no need for it, as the current SUB wont be as serviced once the new one is built.

This plan incorporates a lot of ideas the admin currently wants to do, like moving the pool, and it could be modified slightly to expand the SRC as well. Also, expanding student housing in that area will help ensure that the businesses developped along U-Blvd are actually desired by students (their main patrons, due to proximity). And, this is totally permissable under the OCP “Academic Uses Takeover” clause.

The Changes:

Two new Gage Towers, complete with a new social space in the middle, could become an excellent place for students to study. Throw a huge roof up and make it an atrium. Voila, UBC suddenly meets its targets for informal learning spaces.

Expanded MacInnis Field, with renos to make it more welcoming to play in. We don’t get much sun during the school year, but for those weeks we do, folk should be outside frollicking. MacInnis is the best suited feel for quick informal fun, unless you’re going to trek all the way south to the Thunderbird Park. This would also mean more opportunities for outdoor concerts.

Lowrise student housing over the current bus loop, and below. This housing would be slightly higher scale than the Gage style housing, and would be more geared towards upper year/grad students.

Traffic for the parkade would be routed behind the Gage Complex, and would come around, or, alternatively, the back wall would be blown out and turned into an entrance place too (the feminist law portables are moving in to the new law building, I believe).